50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Seven

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh thread of the 50 Books Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2025, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles or / and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track.

Some of us like to bring over lists to the next thread - again, this is up to you.
The first thread of the year is here, the second thread here , the third thread here, the fourth thread here , the fifth thread here and the sixth thread

And on that topic, I seem to remember seeing a recommendation on these threads a few years back for a book about empty nesting - or something like that! As I didn't need it at the time I didn't pay close attention. Any suggestions?

I read Alice Alone by Amanda Brookfield years ago, while my children were quite small. I loaned it to my neighbour, who was more of the target age, and she was deeply affected by it. I don't remember too much about it myself other than my neighbour's strong reaction.

I'm due to drop DC1 down south for university a week tomorrow, and feeling very wobbly already. Thank you @Arran2024 for recommending Alice, Alone.

39.A Cold Death in Amsterdam by Anja de Jager. Lotte Meerman is a cold case detective who is struggling to recover from the emotional demands of her last investigation, which involved a personal connection. Her next case is one that her father, a retired officer, worked on, and she becomes concerned that he was somehow involved.

This was a decent noirish police procedural where the action zipped along nicely with a largely believable cast. I wanted to read something set in the Netherlands as we holidayed there this year, and the wintery Amsterdam backdrop is well-drawn. It's the first in a series and I definitely liked it well enough to read more.

40. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Nina Riva is Californian model. Glamorous and successful, she is known for throwing the Party of the Year. We join her and her siblings as they prepare for The Riva Party. Interspersed with modern day narrative are reflections on how Nina's parents met, her father's infidelities, her mother's alcoholism and how she ultimately became her siblings' guardian.

This was pretty meh. Not terrible, but very much a Standard Beach Read knd of book. I found the backstory of Nina's parents Mick and June far more interesting and compelling than the present day sections and was quite bored with the assorted party guests and their high jinx. I haven't read anything else by Jenkins Reid and on the basis of this I wouldn't rush to do so.

To anyone struggling - I remember a friends mum positively sobbing at first drop off.

I must be a horrible person. I didn’t shed a single tear when my dc went to uni.

Sending love and stabilisers @StrangewaysHereWeCome

DH did the drop off deed and saved me the car park sob (the reliable car is not big enough for 4 plus stuff!)

Don't worry guys.. they come back and then live in their bedroom until they're at least 30 ...

My younger DS is now in Sheffield doing a Master's and I must admit dropping him off there, where he knows no one , was not much easier than dropping him off as an undergrad.

I have just finished my one and only birthday book which the DSs gave me - Nicola Sturgeon's book Frankly. I wouldn't describe her writing as light of touch. As you might imagine, it's quite intense. Her life has of course been really interesting but her childhood was kind of ordinary so there are no fun stories and really ehr adult life, outside of politics , seems pedestrian. The only time I laughed a bit was in her descriptions of Boris. He is exactly as one would imagine and there was a situation where she managed to get him alone in a room and his advisors practically wrestled her advisers to the ground to try and extricate him, in case he messed up.

Obviously this book has had a hammering on Amazon, much of it by people who I assume haven't read it. My main disappointment is how diplomatic she is. I'd love her to have dug a little more dirt.

@Piggywaspushed – I was at a private event that NS was speaking at, while BJ was PM. She said ‘if you want to know exactly what I think about Boris, just watch Jane Godley’s video. She was spot on’.

101 The Storied Life of AJ Fikry – Gabrielle Zevin RWYO Kindle. I bought this in April 2024. I’m not sure why because I didn’t enjoy Tomorrow x 3, which I read in January 2024. But as usual, it was because it was 99p. This was GZ debut book and I’m so pleased I bought it, because I LOVED it. It was so different to Tomorrow x 3. I’m probably the last 50 booker to read it, but a quick review if anyone hasn’t. AJ Fikry is a miserable book seller who lives on a small island in North East of the US. He’s been particular grumpy since his wife died in an accident. A package is left in his shop which changes his life.

@Benvenuto that’s the MQoS book which was the basis of the film with Saoirse Ronan? I liked the film, haven’t read the book though.

I also loved A J Fikry, it’s a lovely book.

This.

Mine both came back for ages several years after uni but have moved out now. I cried.

Autumn Ali Smith

After year of collecting these in the 99p sale, I kept just missing ‘Autumn’. I wanted to read each at the right time, so I started this on the first day of Autumn - and since I liked it, those I am mixed on what I liked and what it was actually about - I will start winter on the first day of Winter.

I am sure many have read this. This is about Elisabeth, born in 1984 and Daniel who is 101 in present day. They are neighbours and form an unlikely friendship. Pauline Boty, and Christine Keeler’s stories intertwine. It’s full of metaphor, some lovely lines of prose. I am not totally sure I ‘get it’ but I want to keep going.

69. The House of Doors - Tan Twan Eng

Previously recommended here. Lesley looks back on her life in Penang and particularly the few months when Somerset Maugham visited. This mixed real life characters and events with her fictional life. I really enjoyed it - I loved the setting (as have visited Penang) and thought it was really well done with good blend of historical elements and personal and emotional issues. A bold for me.

70. The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie

I had read (relatively recently) all the Christie Challenge books for this month so as I am doing RWYOI picked this from my Kindle stack. Not a Poirot or Marple. The murder which occurs near Dartmoor in the snow is solved by an enthusiastic young lady (along the line of similar who have appeared in Why Didn't they ask Evans?, The Seven Dials Mystery). I can't remember her name now but I quite warmed to her as she was very good at getting people to do what she wanted! Mediocre mystery - although I didn't crack it.

@SheilaFentiman- yes the John Guy book is the one used for the film. I think it was issued to tie in with the film (there’s a picture from the film on the front cover). I haven’t seen the film yet - mainly as I tend to feel quite ill reading about Lord Darnley as he comes across as so repellent so I’m not sure I can face seeing that part of Mary’s story being dramatised.

@Desdemonashandkerchief- I hadn’t heard that Operation Mincemeat is a musical, but it would fit with the book for it to be joyous. The book is really clear that it was an immensely creative plan both scientifically (as they needed to work out how to preserve and transport the corpse) and artistically (as they needed to invent and evidence a fake life complete with fiancée and a theatre visit). The book is also clear that one of the main risks with the plan is that those creating it would get carried away with their own enthusiasm and cleverness. The plan was also helped along by several acts of quiet resistance on the continent due to people just disliking the 3rd Reich and trying to hinder its aims. Also many of the British people involved were clearly very good at the roles they ended up with in the war, and were successful in the post-War period too and ultimately the success of Operation Mincemeat did reduce the death toll when the Allies invaded Italy. This is why I think it is something worth writing about as it’s an interesting story and one that shows that the complexity of the War. It’s also a real contrast to A Spy Among Friends which began as an account of charming, aristocratic spies but became increasingly bleak because so many people ended up dead or damaged.

Good luck to those with DC heading for uni (I’m not at that stage yet but I suspect I will be tearful when my DC leave).

Thanks for recommending Gabrielle Zevin - I’ve reserved the one on BorrowBox but there is a long waiting list.

Child Two has now returned home for (I think) the 4th time! .

Sympathy to everyone with young ones off to uni! DS1 left awhile ago for his final year at Southampton. The initial separation in the first year felt awful to me. I felt bereaved. Then when he came home for Christmas looking happy and confident, I felt a million times better. In my experience it does get easier after the first year and especially after the first term!

😂at @Piggywaspushed saying, Don't worry guys.. they come back and then live in their bedroom until they're at least 30 ... I'm sure this is true! I can't believe that DS will have finished his degree by the end of this academic year. The last couple of years seem to have gone by like a flash. And no he has no clue what he wants to do with his life...

It's such a weird stage when they are between childhood and adulthood like this. DS1 is now Very Independent, but when he moved back into his house this month, there was a spider in the shower, and he rang DH for advice on what to do. They had a very long conversation which culminated in DS squirting washing-up liquid onto the spider (a tip which he had gleaned not from DH, but by consulting the internet on his phone). I thought the whole thing was absurd, but when I saw a photo of the spider, I was slightly more sympathetic - the bloody thing was enormous!

Thanks @Tarragon123 for the Gabrielle Zevin rec!

@AgualusasLover I adored Ali Smith's whole quartet and plan to reread them one after another one day, in order to get a better sense of the connections between them. I agree you don't have to 'get' everything; I just let the prose wash over me and enjoyed it.

Ha @cassandre , that reminds me of the time DH got a message with photo from DS asking “Is this an Asian Hornet?”. At 2a.m. . Not in his bedroom, but in the kitchen. My answer would have been “Why are you still up at 2 a.m., you must have lectures tomorrow. Shut kitchen door, put Post-It on for housemates and GO TO BED” Which is probably why he messaged DH and not me

116 . Human Acts by Han Kang

Set during a political uprising in Gwangju South Korea in 1980 in which many people died. The author takes on 7 different perspectives to that event.

I found this challenging and hard work and not really understanding the wider context didn’t help. As expected there is some lovely prose though (and some quite grim) I absolutely loved The Vegetarian but found The White Book a bit nothing, jury still out on Han Kang.

@AgualusasLover I got on better with each successive novel in the Seasons quartet. In my mind the subsequent novels are a bit less experimental and more classically structured, although I wonder if perhaps I just got more accustomed to the style as things went along? I also feel like I'd get a lot from re-reading them with less time in between to make more sense of the connections.

64 The Hallmarked Man - Robert Galbraith.
No spoilers obviously but I was very disappointed by the latest in the Strike series. Not that it was bad, it's just when a certain standard has been set you hope that it can be maintained. I honestly wanted to knock S&R heads together throughout the book.Troubled Blood and The Running Grave are still my favourites. All I would hope is that the next one picks up exactly where this one finished.

I too enjoyed the seasons quartet. Would like to reread them together at some stage too- I know I didn’t pick up on many things in my first read.
Finished another couple.
144 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Probably the last 50 booker to read this one. The writing was beautiful and though Emma was completely the author of her own downfall- vain and selfish and silly- I couldn’t help but wonder what made her that way and how culpable her father, Charles and romance novelists were in shaping her ridiculous expectations- and how the same sometimes happens today.
145 Gravesend by William Shaw
Book 3 in the DS Alexandra Cupidi series set in Dungeness. This one was a bit convoluted and again a main character ended up in deadly peril but it was enjoyable enough and I have the remaining two in the series so will read them.
Am enjoying RWYO at the moment.

Destination Biafra by Buchi Emecheta

Having read all the Penguin modern classics reissues of Buchi Emecheta's novels I'm now searching for out of print books on WoB. This is her Biafran novel, written about 10 years after the war. Emecheta was a student in London at the time of the war but her hometown was in the border region and badly affected by the atrocities. Not surprisingly this is a very angry novel that is critical of the leaders on both sides and highlights the impact on women. Not an easy read but an important one.

25. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace-Thackeray One I’ve been meaning to tick off for ages. It was definitely a product of its age with casual racism very much front and centre, and a lot of waffle à la Dickens thanks to serial publication. However Becky Sharp as the, often unpleasant and always scheming, anti hero was refreshing, and must have been startlingly original and quite shocking in her day. Particularly as there are heavy hints that she’s basically prostituting herself to move up in society and again when she falls on hard times. Although Makepeace-Thackeray subtitled this ‘A Novel Without A Hero’ for me the hero will always be the gentle, steadfast Dobbin who quietly adores his unrequited love from afar and sacrifices himself to ensure her safety, comfort and happiness.

I loved Vanity Fair when I read it for uni. It’s a long time ago now though